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New UAW President Dennis Williams thanks the crowd as he looks to outgoing president Bob King at the podium during the roll call of votes during the UAW Constitutional Convention at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit on Wednesday, June 4, 2014. Williams was elected as president with 98.5% of the vote after serving as the UAW secretary-treasurer. / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

Dennis Williams, left, the current UAW secretary-treasurer, greets and hugs outgoing UAW President Bob King after he was recognized by the crowd for his service during the UAW Constitutional Convention at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit on Wednesday, June 4, 2014. / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

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The UAW elected Dennis Williams its 11th president Wednesday in a landslide, putting him in charge of a union struggling to regain bargaining leverage, rebuild its finances and restore political clout.

“I am excited for our union. I feel the energy, the power of our unity,” Williams said shortly after he was elected. “I am looking forward to taking on the challenges we have.”

The union faces contract talks with the Detroit Three next year, and expects to wield influence in electing a Democratic president in 2016.

“We have a huge imbalance in this society and we plan on taking on that fight,” said Williams, who received 3,215 votes to 49 votes cast for Gary Walkowicz, a dissident from UAW Local 600.

“Dennis has always been somebody I can trust to talk about the issues at hand,” said Joel Morel, a delegate from UAW Local 145 in Montgomery, Ill., who nominated Williams. “Dennis has always been a champion of social justice.”

Williams, who endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2007 when he was a little-known candidate in Democratic presidential primaries, has close ties to the White House.

“We don’t talk every day. But I consider the president to be a friend,” Williams said, referring to President Obama. “He is somebody who I got to know while he was in the Illinois Senate.”

Williams also developed a long-term strategy for the union, which includes continuing efforts to organize foreign-owned automakers. He will give his acceptance speech Thursday.

Last week, Williams said his goal is to win wage increases for members at the Detroit Three next year. Those hired before 2007 haven’t had a raise in nine years. He also wants to close the wage gap between workers hired before and after 2007 when the UAW agreed to lower pay for new hires.

“I am concerned, and I think everybody should be concerned about certain elements in our country that are trying to diminish people’s rights to vote,” Williams said. “So we will always do the best job we can at the bargaining table. But there is a side of us that I think has a higher calling to reach out and make sure that we have justice in this country.”

Williams is the first UAW president to have served as secretary-treasurer and the first to come out of the union’s agricultural implements department, which represents workers at companies such as John Deere and Caterpillar.

UAW delegates also elected three vice presidents and a new secretary-treasurer by acclamation:

■ Jimmy Settles to his third term as vice president.

■ Cindy Estrada to her second term as vice president.

■ Norwood Jewell, who was a regional director of an 11-county area of south-central Michigan, to vice president.

■ Gary Casteel, who was a regional director of a 15-state region in the south and Atlantic Coast states, to a term as secretary-treasurer.